Clean Feed - PLEASE READ

[Guest]

The problem being that internet traffic does not flow in or out of Australia via a common point where the government could place a filter. There are multiple entry/exit points from the country.

Though the technical detail on how it might be achieved is irrelevant, the issue is how best to stop it happening in the first place.

Actually that is irrelevant for what the govt has in mind, namely a few colocation places around the country that ISPs interconnect with either via fibre or ethernet if they are in the same datacentre, with rings of fibre round most cities and most DSL tails for 1 or more states being terminated in cities this is trivial to do, although this is where the squabbling over funding for those not able to interconnect via ethernet begin, and who pays for the fibre interconnects etc.

Also most fibre into and out of Australia is via 2 places, Sydney and Perth, so it would be easy to trap exit/entry points. Look up the maratime exclusion zones for boats and where they aren't allowed to anchor round Australia there is only the above 2 cities covered from memory.

According to http://www.amsa.gov.au/Shipping_Safety/Marine_Notices/ these 2 are the most current/only ones existing to protect cables.





I guess the funny thing is, there is no protection zone for any tassie cables, but they are domestic, but yea

[Richary]

I used to work for OTC before it got amalgamated into Telstra. And now we have Pipe Networks doing their thing as well. For work have been into a couple of those data centres where the fat feeds come in from overseas.

So yes am very familiar with the cables.

Everything I have seen has been ISP level filtering, and that is backed up the dbcde documents. Nothing to say all traffic has to go through a Government operated filter at a certain point. Though it would still be just as easy to bypass.

[Guest]

I used to work for OTC before it got amalgamated into Telstra. And now we have Pipe Networks doing their thing as well. For work have been into a couple of those data centres where the fat feeds come in from overseas.

I think mum and dad still have this warped plastic promo record OTC put out, maybe they tossed it by now... My point was still valid, regardless of how many pipes in and out of the country, everything is very geo-centralised on 2 points, Sydney and Perth, so a single data centre in each location would technically cover things. However I'm with you on hoping it doesn't get that far.

So yes am very familiar with the cables.

Okie dokie then, that saves some time filling in the blanks I left out from before

Everything I have seen has been ISP level filtering, and that is backed up the dbcde documents. Nothing to say all traffic has to go through a Government operated filter at a certain point.

So far we're only up to the trial section, and again my information is coming out of one of the filtering companies invovled, and judging on fuddy duddy ruddy and his fellow micro managers, and what I'm hearing about them having their own little clusters to toy with seems plausable, even if it isn't documented at this point in time.

The guys at the filering company are of course very much against this and want to collect lots more money for selling lots more solutions to individual ISPs.

Although I assume infrastructure guys would be in favour of some centralised clustering solution so they make money on selling their solution.

Though it would still be just as easy to bypass.

I don't equate getting round this type of filtering as bypassing really, it's more like putting a house of cards up on a freeway and trying to block a 29 trailer road train doing 150km/hr...

[Richary]

Not my creation but I loved it when it was posted on WP.


If you would like to humour me a little and pass this around to your
friends, I think that this is a good way to sum up how the internet
filter will end up ruining Australian net connections:

'For those of us who are having difficulties explaining this to non-
technical friends/colleagues, try using this analogy which has worked
for me:

Installing an internet filter is like the government posting security
guards outside every newsagent in the country.

If you want a newspaper or magazine, rather than walk into the agency
and pick one from the shelves you have to ask the guard to get it for
you.

But before the guard gives you the newspaper he sits downs and slowly
reads through each and every article noting down key words in each one.

As the guard starts doing this you notice 5 people forming a small
queue behind you.

The guard finds on page 17 an article about a missing child in the UK.
He writes down the word 'child'.

There are now 13 people in the queue behind you.

On page 19 the guard finds a small article about the recent elections
in Italy. The reporter makes some comical and titillating comments of
the state of the Italian electoral system and the fact they have
elected another former porn star.
The guard writes down the word 'porn'.

There are now over 30 people in the queue behind you.

At this point he guard notices in the hundreds of words he has written
down the word 'child' and shortly thereafter the word 'porn'. He
returns the newspaper back to the shelves and walks back towards you.

There are now over 50 people behind you in the queue.

The guard then informs you that the newspaper no longer exists and
forces you out of the queue, much to your confusion.

As you stand there wondering what just happened, you notice that the
queue is now out onto the main road blocking traffic and that someone
using the side entrance to the newsagent has just bought a copy of the
newspaper you were told does not exist.'

[2dudez]

Yeah.... I liked it when you posted it in this thread on October 31st too.

[Guest]

Yeah.... I liked it when you posted it in this thread on October 31st too.

me too!

[Guest]

Ok this isn't strictly about what's going to, or is happening in Australia, but shows how pointless similar filtering systems really are:

Concerned Wikipedian writes "Starting December 4th, Wikipedia administrators noticed a surge of edits from certain IP addresses. These IPs turned out to be the proxies for the content filters of at least 6 major UK ISPs. After some research by Wikipedians, it appears that the image of the 1970s LP cover art of the Scorpions' 'Virgin Killer' album has been blocked because it was judged to be 'child pornography,' and all other attempts to access Wikimedia foundation sites from these ISPs are being proxied to only a few IP addresses. This is causing many problems for Wikipedia administrators, because much of the UK vandalism now comes from a single IP, which, when blocked, affects potentially hundreds of thousands of anonymous users who intend no harm and are utterly confused as to why they are no longer able to edit. The image was flagged by the the Internet Watch Foundation, which is funded by the EU and the UK government, and has the support of many ISPs and online institutions in the UK. The filter is fairly easy to circumvent simply by viewing the article in some other languages, or by logging in on the secure version of Wikipedia."

http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/sla ... article.pl

[Guest]

In one of the articles, the comments about the above treatment of wikipedia seem some what humourus at times:

"Let's see if the war on nudity goes as well as the war on drugs and the war on terror."

This is all pretty ironic realy since the 5th of December marked the 75th annaversary of prohibihition in the US, saving them all from the nasties of beer, only to have it replaced in 2 months or less by much harder booze kids wouldn't have come in contact with.

The moral authoritarians trying to control everyones lives even had a hand in Australia's version of prohibition with respect to the six o'clock swill, which has possibly been the basis of the binge culture we see today. While the quakers aren't entirely to blame, who knows if this would have been the case if they had kept their noses and other body parts to themselves.

Prohibition of all kinds always fails, apparently the majority of non-anglos the originally end up in US jails, are there for minor drug offenses, which of course puts them in contact with hardend criminials and of course the "justice" system stopped being about reform in the 70s and more about punishment which only exaserbtes the ills of society.

If it wasn't for prohibition in the US, the Kennedy family (as in John F Kennedy) would never have been president, you see his grandfather was a beer barren or rum runner hauling booze in from Canada and that's how they gained their wealth.

So it seems this latest prohibition isn't a war on child porn and porn in general, but a war on the natural form of the human body, the image in question by the way wouldn't be classified as porn in Australia under current laws, since I've not seen any proof the photographer gained sexual gratification or the child is posing or appearing sexually provacative. If this were child porn every parent that ever took a snap of their kid in the bath, or worst Australia's funny home video show would be guilty of the same, and they air it on national TV.

In fact, me being a father I was somewhat concerned about naked or semi-naked pictures/videos of my child and then I saw more or less the same thing on national TV and all my concern went away in a split second.

[Guest]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/home/technol ... 20006.html

I'm guessing from how much backflipping and flip flopping is occurring this is dead already, especially with Telstra so adamonently against it.

[Guest]

/me start's playing doors - this is the end...

Xiroth writes "In what could be the first step to backing down on the plans to censor the Australian Internet, Communication Minister Stephen Conroy has made it known that the live trials of the Government filter will not, in fact, be live, instead being downgraded to a closed network test. Given that this would provide no further information than what Government tests have already provided, this may prove to be a face-saving measure before the plan is quietly scrapped. Nonetheless, concerned Australians are encouraged to attend protests planned for this weekend to ensure that the Government gets the message."

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid= ... 9&from=rss

[rhinogeo]

This subject has been a dead duck since The Greens announced about a month ago that they wouldn't support the government's proposed legislation

I'm surprised so much time has been wasted on it since then

[Guest]

I'm surprised so much time has been wasted on it since then

The problem is if you don't keep up the pressure the bastards try to sneak it in some other way, sunlight is such a great disinfectant

[Guest]

I wonder if this is how the good Senator imagined he'd get his name in the international main stream media...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/techn ... technology

[Damo.]

I wonder if this is how the good Senator imagined he'd get his name in the international main stream media...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/techn ... technology

Care to cut and paste the article here? (Yet another must-register-for-free-and-exclusive-content website)

[Guest]

I wonder if this is how the good Senator imagined he'd get his name in the international main stream media...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/techn ... technology

Care to cut and paste the article here? (Yet another must-register-for-free-and-exclusive-content website)

Sorry, I just clicked on the link and it opened for me, I don't have a NYT account so it must have been because I already used details from some bugmenot user already.

SYDNEY — The Australian government plans to test a nationwide Web filtering system that would force Internet service providers to block access to thousands of sites containing questionable or illegal content, prompting cries of censorship from advocacy groups.

The proposed filter is part of a $82 million “cybersafety plan” started in May with the goals of protecting children online and stopping adults from downloading content that is illegal to possess in Australia, like child pornography or materials related to terrorism.

But the plan has ignited opposition from online advocacy groups and industry specialists who say it would slow browsing speeds and do little to block undesirable content.

Last month, the minister of communications, Stephen Conroy, invited Internet service providers and mobile phone operators to participate in a live trial of the program, which is set to begin this year.

The proposed system consists of two tiers. Under the first, all Australian service providers must block access to around 10,000 Web sites on a list maintained by the Australian Communications and Media Authority, the federal monitor that oversees film classifications.

The second tier would require service providers to provide an optional filter that individuals could use to block material deemed unsuitable for children, like pornography or violence.

The government says the list, which is not available to the public, includes only illegal content, mostly child pornography. But critics worry about the lack of transparency and say the filter could be used to block a range of morally hazy topics, like gambling or euthanasia.

“Even if the scheme is introduced with the best of intentions, there will be enormous political pressure on the government to expand the list,” said Colin Jacobs, the vice chairman of Electronic Frontiers Australia, a technology advocacy group. “We worry that the scope of the list would expand at a very rapid rate.”

The proposal has set off a flurry of anxious chatter on social networking sites like Facebook, where thousands of users have announced plans to attend mass protests on Saturday. More than 85,000 users have also signed an online petition created by the left-wing advocacy group GetUp, which calls the mandatory filter “a serious threat to our democratic values.”

Some industry specialists have also criticized the plan.

“Our view is there are some serious shortfalls in what is being proposed,” said Mark White, the chief operating officer at iiNet, Australia’s third-largest service provider, which has applied to take part in the trial.

Mr. White said the mandatory filter was unlikely to work because it would not monitor illegal activity on peer-to-peer or file-sharing networks, where most child pornography and other illegal content is exchanged. The filter would also slow Internet browsing speeds for all regardless of whether they were trying to access forbidden sites, he said.

This concern has been affirmed by the government’s own research. According to a July report by the communications and media authority, the best filter in tests of six unidentified Internet filtering programs slowed browsing speeds by 2 percent; the other five made the Internet run between 22 and 87 percent slower.

The study found that filtering programs were effective at blocking illicit material around 92 percent of the time, but around 3 percent of legitimate sites were mistakenly caught up in the filters.

Australia’s largest service provider, Telstra, has also expressed doubts about the plan. The firm’s chief operating officer, Greg Winn, said last week that using service provider filters to stop illicit content was “like trying to boil the ocean.” As soon as the filter was applied, he said, someone would find a way to break it.

Clive Hamilton, a senior ethics professor at the Australian National University and a supporter of the plan, dismissed the arguments.

“The laws that mandate upper speed limits do not stop people from speeding, does that mean that we should not have those laws?” he said. “We live in a society, and societies have always imposed limits on activities that it deems are damaging.” he said. “There is nothing sacrosanct about the Internet.”

The children’s welfare group, ChildWise, has also defended the plan, saying filtering of child pornography would be “a victory for common sense.”

Mr. Conroy says he and the government are open to feedback from Internet industry groups and the public. On Tuesday, the minister introduced a blog seeking comment on Australia’s digital future, including a string on how to “maintain the same ‘civil society’ we enjoy offline in an online world.”

In an e-mail message, Mr. Conroy said the government was taking note of the industry’s concerns about the technical limitations of the proposed filter. He added that the trial would provide “an invaluable opportunity for I.S.P.’s style to inform the government’s approach.”